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This section will develop the fundamental skills you need to analyze poetry. As you saw in the Introducción: Getting Started, all of the literary genres share the first two stages of reading, but the strategies for poetry differ in the third and fourth stages. This has to do with the physical nature of the text. In poetry, every word is critically important, so the reading strategies for poetry must treat each word as a part of the whole.
Remember that the stages and strategies for reading any genre represent a process that builds on itself. With practice, tasks that at first seem awkward or tedious eventually become second nature. Many students find that the ability to analyze poetry is a skill more easily acquired working in groups. What you might not see, someone else will. Therefore, you are strongly encouraged to work with your study group even when not specifically instructed to.
Task 1. Create Graphic Organizer. If you began your study of literature with the narrative, you already should have a cultural/historical framework into which you can insert the information on poetry. If you are beginning with poetry, you will have to create a graphic organizer. For more specific guidelines, see Stage I, Strategy 1, in Chapter 1: La narrativa.
Task 2. Enter Information. Using your course syllabus, determine the chronological placement of all the poets you will be studying. Enter them into your graphic organizer. As you study these poets and their poetry, you will add the information you discover to your cultural/historical framework, providing yourself with a broad overview of the chronological, cultural, and historical development of Hispanic poetry.
Task 1. Activate Prior Knowledge.
Task 2. Key Word Search.
Task 3. Personal Research. Find a personal source of information (a professor, instructor, local teacher, friend, graduate student, librarian) who is interested in the genre, the poetry and/or history of Spain, the poet, or a related topic. Try to expand your knowledge base by talking to that person about the topic(s) of your research. Document your discoveries here.
Task 1. Elaborate. Take the information you gathered from the Panorama histórico section and Strategy 2, and add it to the graphic organizer from Strategy 1.
Task 2. Skim.
Task 3. Scan.